New rules allow Japanese adult film actresses to stop the sale of their videos after five years

Industry group wants to make it easier for women to leave their past behind them as they transition to life after porn.

In many ways, Japan takes an accepting, pragmatic stance when it comes to pornography. However, that’s not to say that working in the adult film industry carries no stigma, and a new rule set to go into effect next spring aims to make it easier for on-camera performers to extract themselves from the adult video industry.

Japan’s Adult Video Human Rights Organization (the successor to the Intellectual Property Promotion Association’s Adult Video Industry Reform and Promotion Advisory Committee) will be asking production and distribution companies to comply with a new guideline allowing actresses to halt the sale of adult videos they have appeared in. Actresses can exercise this option once the film has been commercially available for five years, or five years and six months after the film was recorded. Additionally, companies will also be restricted from using any of the footage in other products, such as pornography omnibus releases should an actress ask for a halt in sales.

These measures have been added to make it easier for actresses to transition out of the adult video industry and not have their reputation follow them into more chaste professional pursuits or private family life. Should an actress choose not to ask for sales to be halted, the distributor’s right to sell the film will be automatically renewed in increments of one year at a time. Adult video companies associated with the Intellectual Property Promotion Association are requested to comply with the guideline for films featuring actresses who enter into contracts from April 1, 2018 (April 1 being the start of the fiscal year at many Japanese companies).

IPPA-affiliated companies will also be asked to follow new regulations regarding contract negotiations and proceedings from January 1. Citing a desire to protect actresses against deception, pornographic production companies will be required to explicitly explain that “Adult video production is the filming of sexual intercourse” and “There is a risk that other people will find out about you appearing in an adult video, and there is also a risk of sexually transmitted infection.” Advocates of the new rules assert that many women enter into contracts to appear in adult videos without fully comprehending what the work entails, and so only after the actress receives a through explanation and signs separate forms of understanding and intent will production companies be allowed to enter into a contract with her to film pornographic content.

While the regulations are not government-mandated, compliance with them is the only way for films to be certified as an “appropriately made adult video” by the IPPA.